WASHINGTON – Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won reelection on Oct. 25, pulling off a stunning comeback to secure a fourth term in office and defeat conservative candidate Flávio Bolsonaro, an ally of President Donald Trump
The 80-year-old liberal leader defeated Bolsonaro with 51.76% of the vote in the country’s runoff election, in which affordability and the country’s relationship with the United States were prominent issues. Lula's surprise victory comes after Bolsonaro emerged as the leading candidate in the country’s first-round election earlier this month.
Trump did not offer an official endorsement for Bolsonaro, 45, ahead of the election that saw Lula accuse the U.S. government of intervening to help his opponent. The Rio
de Janeiro senator and eldest son of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro had touted his close relationship with the Trump administration.
Lula's victory denies Trump a new partner in the Western Hemisphere, where the United States has shifted resources and attention with its boat strikes in the Caribbean, military intervention in Venezuela, and formation of the Shield of the Americas security umbrella over the past year.
Trump has endorsed candidates in other Latin American elections and openly favored governments in the hemisphere, actively involving himself in elections as he builds a stable of conservative leaders who are indebted to him.
Lula’s triumph over Bolsonaro interrupts a string of victories for conservative candidates in Latin America that saw Trump acquire ideological allies across the region in Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras, and Peru.
"It shows that the left is not like a vanquished force. It's on the wrong end of the pendulum swing, but it's still a significant force in many of these countries," said Christopher Hernandez-Roy, the deputy director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
In the lead-up to the runoff election, the Bolsonaro family appeared on the verge of sweeping every office they ran for this year after four other family members ran for and won federal office. The family was hoping that a win for Flávio Bolsonaro would also help liberate Jair Bolsonaro, Trump’s longtime political ally who is now serving a 27-year-sentence under house arrest after a Brazilian court convicted him of an attempted coup.
Brazil’s Supreme Court convicted the elder Bolsonaro last year of plotting against Lula after losing the 2022 election. He is the first former president in Brazil to be convicted of such a crime.
Lula accuses Trump of election interference, favoring Bolsonaro
Allegations from Lula that the Trump administration interfered in the race featured prominently ahead of the election.
Lula refused to grant visas to two American diplomats who sought to visit the country in July over election meddling concerns and withheld diplomatic approval for Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Brazil.
The State Department said the accusation was baseless. In a tit-for-tat move, it revoked the diplomatic visa of Brazil’s ambassador to the United States.
In an Oct. 7 letter to the State Department, a dozen Democratic lawmakers said they were concerned the United States was seeking to "torpedo the relationship" with Lula’s government to "manufacture this diplomatic crisis months away from elections in Brazil."
Appearing at the United Nations, minutes before Trump was set to take the stage in September, Lula said his country would not let internal or external enemies of democracy thwart the will of the Brazilian people.
A Lula campaign ad subsequently called Bolsonaro "Trump’s candidate" and accused the American president of wanting to "colonize Brazil" for its resources. Brazil’s intelligence agency also warned of the potential for a "critical level" of American election interference.
The accusations followed a monthslong thaw in relations between the two leaders in 2025 that led to the easing of some tariffs on Brazil and the removal of sanctions on a Brazilian Supreme Court justice who oversaw the conviction of Jair Bolsonaro. The pair also met behind closed doors in May 2026 at the White House.
Trump also hosted Flávio Bolsonaro in the Oval Office in May. The presidential candidateposted a photo of himself with Trump on social media and told reporters he did not ask for Trump's endorsement at the time.
Trump said in early October that he'd been watching the matchup "very closely" and predicted it would be a close election but declined to go further.
He said again on Oct. 25, as voters were at the polls in a second round of voting, that he was monitoring the election and did not want to say who he was supporting.
An overt endorsement from Trump could have backfired, regional experts argued, and made it easier for Lula to pick up enough votes to win. A senior White House official described Flávio Bolsonaro ahead of the election as a fan and supporter of the president who was aligned with many of the policies on Trump’s agenda.
Prospects for economic thaw dim
The continuation of a Lula government could make it harder for Brazil to secure a reduction in tariffs on Brazilian imports, a fee critics say is paid for by consumers. Most recently, the United States imposed a 25% tariff on Brazilian products with some exceptions in July.
Last year, Trump put a 50% tariff on Brazil that was related, in part, to Jair Bolsonaro’s trial and the perceived censorship of American social media companies in Brazil. He later removed tariffs on beef, coffee, and cocoa and other Brazilian agricultural products as he tried to lower grocery prices in the United States.
Additional duties were dropped this year when the Supreme Court ruled them unconstitutional.
Trump has since used a different mechanism, an investigation into alleged unfair trade practices, to impose a new slate of tariffs. He separately acted in August to pause tariffs on all beef imports for 90 days, a move he said would primarily affect Argentina and Brazil.
Eduardo Bolsonaro, Flávio's younger brother and a Brazilian politician convicted of illegally interfering in his father’s trial, told USA TODAY on Oct. 14 that he hoped Flávio Bolsonaro would use his friendly relationship with Trump to seek a renegotiation of the 25% tariffs on Brazil.
"If my brother wins – hope God he will win – he’s going to appoint a delegation to come in here to talk with Bessent, Rubio and Trump about it," said Eduardo Bolsonaro, who has lived in Texas since 2025.
A senior White House official told USA TODAY it was too early to say what might happen with the tariffs ahead of the election. Flávio Bolsonaro had previously pushed the Trump administration to delay them until 2027.
Valentina Sader, a native of Brazil who leads the Atlantic Council’s work on U.S.-Brazil relations, said she would expect Lula to "have a pragmatic relationship with Trump" when it comes to trade negotiations.
A Lula win will be "more of the same, which means a relationship that is sometimes good and is sometimes bad" and Lula is "always looking for strategic autonomy," Hernandez-Roy said.
Under Lula, Brazil will likely seek to deepen ties with China and further move away from the United States. China is the Latin American country’s largest trading partner and a cofounder, along with Brazil, of the economic group BRICS.
Flávio Bolsonaro said during his campaign that he plans to work with both nations and would not choose sides in the competition between the world’s top economies. But he pledged to welcome U.S. investment in and development of the country’s critical minerals – something the Trump administration has made a priority in its contest with Beijing.
Lula, however, hammered Flávio Bolsonaro on the campaign trail over his close ties with the Trump administration, claiming the U.S. president wants to "colonize" Brazil and acquire its natural resources for Washington’s profit.
Maria Victoria Murillo, chair of the political science department at Columbia University, said that even a Bolsonaro victory would not have managed to reverse China’s rising influence in Brazil over the long run. Lula’s win, she said, may just further accelerate the inevitable.
"China is not playing the partisan card as much as it is playing the market card," she said.
Trump's security alliance takes a hit
The Trump administration hoped to gain a powerful ally in the region at a time when it is trying to assert American dominance in the Western Hemisphere.
If Flávio Bolsonaro had won, the current White House would have been able to count on ideologically friendly governments in Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Chile and Peru – all five of South America’s largest economies. He was expected to join the Shield of the Americas, the Trump-formed security coalition of more than a dozen countries in Latin America, and expand intelligence and counter-narcotics cooperation with the United States.
Instead, Lula will maintain Brazil’s role as a bulwark against the Trump administration’s efforts to acquire further influence in the region.
In May, the State Department labeled Brazil's two largest organized crime groups as foreign terrorist organizations, a move that came two days after Flávio Bolsonaro requested the designation during his Oval Office visit.
Lula denounced the decision, which came three weeks after his own visit to Washington, and accused the United States of treating Brazil like a "tinpot republic."
As part of his regional military efforts, Trump has authorized deadly airstrikes against alleged drug trafficking vessels in the Caribbean Sea and approved a military operation in Venezuela to capture the country’s leader Nicolás Maduro and bring him to the United States to face drug trafficking charges.
Lula’s victory will come as a disappointment to Trump, according to Murillo, who serves as the director of the Institute for Latin American Studies at Columbia. But she said the White House was going to do what it wanted in the region, regardless.
The United States is the dominant leader in the hemisphere, as you have seen with Venezuela, she said. "I don’t think Lula was happy with that outcome, but the U.S. is not asking for permission in any case."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Lula wins historic fourth term in Brazil, denying Trump a close ally
